What is the mind? Is it simply the activity of the brain, or is there something more subtle to discover through direct experience?

In this Berkeley Circle dialogue, neuroscientist David Presti and Buddhist scholar Khenpo Choying Dorjee explore one of the most enduring questions of human life. Drawing from neuroscience, contemplative practice, and Buddhist insight, they will examine how perception, identity, emotion, habit, and awareness shape our experience of reality.

This evening is not a debate, but an inquiry—an invitation to look more closely at the mind we live with every day, and to ask how understanding it may open the way to greater clarity, compassion, and freedom.

The Berkeley Circle is designed as an intimate gathering of no more than 45 participants. By keeping the circle small, we create the conditions for genuine dialogue, meaningful exchange, and the depth of reflection that large audiences cannot easily sustain. These evenings are not simply lectures, but living conversations at the crossroads of science, innovation, and wisdom.

Bios:

David E. Presti is a professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of California in Berkeley, where he has taught neurobiology and psychology for 35 years. For a decade he also worked in the clinical treatment of addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center. And for the last 25 years he has engaged in dialogue and teaching on science with Tibetan Buddhist monastic communities in India, Nepal, and Bhutan – this via Science for Monks & Nuns, a program initiated by the Dalai Lama. He has taught and provided mentoring for the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) program in psychedelic therapy and research since the program’s inception in 2016 and is a founding faculty member of the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP). His undergraduate education is in physics, chemistry, and mathematics, and he has doctorates in molecular biology from the California Institute of Technology and in clinical psychology from the University of Oregon. He is author of the books Foundational Concepts in Neuroscience: A Brain-Mind Odyssey (Norton, 2016) and Mind Beyond Brain: Buddhism, Science, and the Paranormal (Columbia University Press, 2018), and of the edX online public education course Psychedelics and the Mind (2023).

Khenpo Choying Dorjee is a Tibetan Buddhist scholar known for his fresh and engaging way of presenting Buddhist philosophy. He was a devoted student of the late Khen Rinpoche Kunga Wangchuk. Khenpo joined the Dzongsar Khyentse Chokyi Lodro Institute (DKCLI) in 1992, receiving his Khenpo title in 2002, and his Khenpo degree (the monastic education equivalent to a PhD in Buddhism) in 2004. He then spent many years in various teaching and leadership roles at DKCLI, and in 2010, was appointed as a teacher to Sakya Dungsay Avikrita Rinpoche.

In 2011 Khenpo was sent to UC Berkeley in the U.S. as a visiting scholar by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, and was also appointed by Rinpoche as the head principal of DCKLI for the 2013-2016 term. Since then Khenpo has been directed by Khyentse Rinpoche to give teachings and to lead practices around Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas. His rich knowledge and deep understanding of Buddhism have benefited the many students who have attended his teachings.

Berkeley Circle #2 Talk: What Is the Mind? A Dialogue Between Neuroscience and Buddhist Insight